Not the Same
by Calzonaff
Summary: Just my extension of the shower scene. ONE SHOT. Arizona's POV. Sorry for the sucky summary. First fanfic, please be nice! And review to ;D Xx


It smells.  
I know that. It reeks. I smell like a public bathroom.  
And I am uncomfortable. My good leg is jutted out at a strange angle, and what's left of the other is just ... there. A useless stump. But I don't move.  
Because this is humiliating. I feel like a child. Everything has to be done _for _me. I can't dress. I can't shift from the bed to the chair. And, apparently, I can't even use the goddamn bathroom.  
A child.  
I hate this. I _hate _it. I was raised by a military father. I am a surgeon. I am _independent_. I am _self sufficient_. I do things by _myself._ My _own _way. Because I am a _good man in a storm. _Or, at least I used to be. Before... this. Now I am nothing. A shadow of the person I used to be. A shell. A pathetic, empty shell. I used to be confident, I used to be proud. I used to be beautiful. Now all I have is bitterness and broken pride, which weighs on me like an anchor attached to my soul.  
I just wish that everything could go back to how it used to be. I could strut through the halls, Karev at my heels, oozing confidence and optimism. Strut. What am I kidding? Skate. I'd fly down the hall on my Heelies. Heelies that lie untouched in the corner of my closet. Callie used to warn me about them all the time. How I'd break an ankle screwing around on them. Callie, who loved me. Callie, who used to look at me like the world stopped when I smiled. Callie, whose eyes glaze over the stump. Whose eyes fill with pity and sadness when she sees me. _Pity_. I am _Arizona Robbins_. I do not accept anyone's _pity.  
_I hear the door open. Maybe the nurse is back to check on me. Maybe she decided to look past the awful words in favour of the fact I didn't throw anything at her. But the voice that echoes through the apartment does not belong to the nurse I chased off.  
"Arizona? I come to get you. You are going to this meeting. It starts in 20 minutes." Callie's voice sounds through the apartment.  
_Oh God. Please, no. _I leaned my head against the bathroom wall. _Don't let her see me like this.  
_"Arizona?" Her foot steps are getting closer. My face gets hot with humiliation. No leg, in a puddle of pee. How will she ever be able to see me as anything but pathetic now?  
"Where are you?"  
_Please just walk out the door Callie. I can't handle this. _  
But then she is there. She takes one look at me sitting on the floor.  
"Are you ok?!" I don't miss the line of panic that edges her voice. "Where is the nurse?!"  
Oops.  
"I-I didn't like her. So I fired her." _But at least I didn't toss anything at her.  
_Callie sits on the toilet across from me, her hands passing over her eyes. She's tired. She does that when she's tired. "Great. Thats- that-" I can see the bags under her eyes. I know that I am the cause of them. A wave of guilt washes over me. It's almost enough to make me apologise.  
Almost.  
"Why are you...?" Then its back. The embarrassment. I can feel hot tears of shame gathering in my eyes. _No. You are already pathetic enough. Don't you dare cry.  
_"I thought that- that I could get to the toilet. By myself." I watch her face transform, and I look closer. The pity is there. Ever present. And something else. Guilt? "Apparently I was wrong." the bitterness infuses without me meaning it to. This isn't my voice. My voice is happy. Optimistic. Perky. This is... lifeless. I feel the embers of anger start to flare in my chest. Everything has been taken from me. I couldn't have been left with my voice?  
Callie looks at me again. And then it happens. The pity in her gaze fans the embers, and before can smother them they are roaring violently through my chest.  
"_Do I look ok?_" I flinch inwardly as the venom in my voice causes a flash of pain to cross Callie's face. Somewhere, there is a rational part of me that knows this isn't her fault. That what I am doing is wrong. But I am engulfed in ferocious flames and I have no way to extinguish them now. "I am sitting in a puddle of my own _urine_!" I shout the last word at her. She gets up, and for a moment I think she'll leave. But she just reached for the shower.  
"I am putting you in the shower." Her voice shakes. Because of me. Because I am hurting the woman I love. She deserves better than this. Despair is mixing with the anger, swirling my emotions into a black whole of confusion and self pity. Everything I see is red and hot and I yell  
"_No! Get out, just get out!" _Find someone worth your time. Leave while you can.  
"_Hey_!" Now Callie is angry to. She turns to me, pointing and angry hand in my face. "Do _not _talk to me like that!"  
"_PLEASE_! Please get out!" I nearly spit the words at her as I knock her hands out of my face. Again, I expect her to turn and walk away, but instead her hands anchor themselves around my wrist. _Why can't she just understand? _ "Didn't you hear me?! YOU DID THIS! I can't even pee by myself!" _Don't waste your life on me.  
_"Yeah, and that's a problem, cause you now stink! This bathroom stinks!" She is still wrestling with me on the floor, even as we yell months of bitterness and pain between each other like a poisonous ball. In one severe yank she has my arms around her neck, and I am being pulled up against her.  
"_Get off me!"  
"I am not sharing-"_  
"_Get OFF of me!"  
"-my home with anyone who-"  
"Get OFF!"  
"-SMELLS like this!"  
_And then she is throwing me up against the shower door, her body holding against mine, holding me there. It was a familiar move that we had perfected a long time ago, a life time ago, a happy time ago. It was a familiar move that meant something completely different to what it used to, a move that was a shadow of its former glory. A shell. Like me.  
"_GET OFF OF ME!" _My lungs nearly burst with the force of the scream. The sobs that I have been holding in escape.  
"THERE'S NO WHERE ELSE TO GO!" Callie is screaming back. The hot water is running over both of us now, drowning away tears that we are both shedding. "This is my life now to!"  
And in an instant, Callie's face crumples, and she is sobbing in a way that I haven't seen in years. Because of me. After everything she has done... even now, as she sobs out her pain, her strong arms are still holding me in place. Like they always have. And how did I repay her for it? Guilt smooths the anger out of my face as her tears extinguish the raging inferno inside me.  
"Calliope..." My voice is soft now. I put everything into that word. The guilt, the apology. The love. I infuse every good feeling that I have into her name. And I pray to whatever God there is that she understands.  
She sobs harder. I can feel myself start to break as well. But this time, something has changed. Something in our dynamic has shifted. The anger is gone.  
"Callie... please." _Please look at me. Please forgive me. Please say you love me. Please... stay.  
_She is still sobbing as she falls into me. We are both still crying as we cling completely to each other, desperately seeking and finding comfort in the others embrace. Her head is on my shoulder, her arms still supporting me. My face is buried in her hair, my arms wrapped around her neck. I don't know how long we stay there, but we do, letting the water wash away the pain and bitterness to leave us yes, still damaged, but armed with a little hope. _  
_


End file.
